Soldier N: Gambian Bluff

by David Monnery

  ‘Not exactly,’ Caskey said.

  ‘Well, what we have here is almost a definition of a good soldier: someone who’s emotionally capable of taking risks, but has the sense to calculate them as well as he can.’

  ‘Sounds like a good man to have around,’ Caskey commented.

  ‘Yes … I don’t know whether I should say this or not,’ Weighell went on, ‘but I’ve never felt comfortable with the man, either on the job or off it.’ He smiled. ‘Which may just be a matter of two people who rub each other up the wrong way.’

  ‘I see,’ Caskey said, in a tone which suggested the opposite.

  ‘Anyway, you’ll probably get the chance to make up your own mind about him. If there’s stuff going on all round him, I don’t expect Simon McGrath has been sitting in his bungalow waiting for things to get back to normal. He’ll be out there in the thick of it.’

  Mustapha Diop had now been confined to the house on Marina Parade for almost thirty-six hours. He was sharing this confinement with his wife, their three children, and five of their children’s friends from the embassy, who had been staying the night with them, and who had not been allowed to return home. All the Gambian staff had vanished, leaving his wife with all the cooking to do and the children in a state of near-permanent riot.

  At first Diop had clung to the hope that things would blow over, that the new government would prove acceptable to everyone and that things would return to normal. After being taken on the strange taxi ride through Banjul, he had reluctantly reached the conclusion that these were not the sort of people the international community was likely to welcome to its bosom. They were either idealists or madmen, two groups which Diop had always found hard to disentangle. The history of the twentieth century – not to mention the last quarter of a century in Africa – seemed to bear out his thesis: the only thing that ever really worked was doing things one step at a time. Grand ideas always seemed to end in someone’s tears.

  He hoped this particular grand idea was not going to end in his. There seemed little doubt that the planes he had been hearing all morning belonged to the Senegalese Air Force, for his government was holding to the Treaty and intervening on the overthrown Jawara’s behalf. Diop hardly dared think about what the rebels were doing at this moment, or what their intentions might be towards him and his family. If they were looking for someone to take their frustrations out on, they could hardly find anyone more suitable.

  The thought had no sooner escaped him than it took flesh, materializing in the form of three men walking towards his front door. One of them was the man called Sallah, who had been on the taxi ride with him and the coup leader, Jabang. The latter, Diop had to admit, had been reasonably personable for someone so intense, but Sallah had seemed neither likeable nor trustworthy. His heart sank.

  They knocked on the door, which Diop thought had to be a good sign. He was not so sure when he opened it, and found two rifle barrels pointed at his stomach.

  ‘You will come with us, please,’ Sallah said.

  ‘Where to?’ Diop asked, not moving.

  ‘The radio station. You are going to tell the world what is happening here,’ Sallah told him. ‘And what might happen,’ he added.

  Diop did not like the sound of those last four words. ‘May I tell my wife where I am going?’ he asked with as much dignity as he could muster.

  ‘There’s no time,’ he was told, and the rifle barrels twitched as if to emphasize the point. Diop followed Sallah out to the road, where the inevitable taxi was waiting. They got in the back with one of the armed men, who had to lay his rifle across all their legs. The other got in front with the driver.

  No one spoke during the five-minute drive to the radio station. Once there, Sallah accompanied Diop up the stairs to the studio, where Jabang was already waiting with Jawara’s senior wife, the Lady Chilel. To suggest that the atmosphere was cool would have been to vastly understate the situation: it was positively frigid.

  ‘Lady Jawara,’ Diop said, extending his hand in greeting before Sallah could say anything.

  ‘Monsieur Diop,’ she said graciously. ‘I apologize for the behaviour of my countrymen.’

  ‘Sit down and read this,’ Sallah told Diop coldly, handing him a typewritten sheet of paper. ‘You will be reading it over the air in a few minutes.’

  Diop glanced through it. According to the text he demanded to be taken to meet the Senegalese commander, and wished to appeal to the Senegalese Red Cross, on behalf of the Gambian Red Cross, for medicine, food and vehicles. The text claimed he had seen people on the streets of Banjul making clenched-fist salutes in support of the revolution – well, he supposed he had seen one or two – and contained a personal plea from him to his own Government to negotiate a ceasefire with the newly formed Gambian Supreme Revolutionary Council.

  Diop was pleasantly surprised. There were no threats in the message, either to his own safety or anyone else’s.

  His relief was short-lived. Lady Jawara was the first to take the microphone, and she had a list of hostages to read out. It included herself, eight of her husband’s children, seven members of his cabinet, and Diop himself, together with his wife and children. All would be killed if the Senegalese troops were not withdrawn by five o’clock that afternoon.

  Since no one intervened to correct her, Lady Jawara had presumably read the text she had been given, but the tone in her voice – a mixture of contempt and disbelief – was one which Diop wished he could have emulated. Unfortunately the shock of having his life threatened – and with a deadline less than four hours away – had somewhat unnerved him, and his declaration sounded, to him at least, both nervous and hesitant. It was only when he had finished, and saw Sallah and Jabang exchanging smiles, that he realized that this was exactly what they had wanted.

  The leader now took the microphone himself. There had already been a grievous loss of life, Jabang said, and no one could desire more. But, reluctantly, he felt compelled to announce himself ready to kill Jawara’s family and cabinet if that was the price of preserving the revolution. ‘The country is with us,’ he claimed, and he had the power to execute the prisoners. Ultimately their fate lay not in his hands but in those of the Senegalese invaders. The latter had but to announce a withdrawal and the prisoners would all be freed.

  Jabang stared at the microphone, as if willing it to believe him, and abruptly got up from the chair and walked to the window. Diop studied his face: the mouth pursed with anxiety, the skin drawn tight by tension across the forehead and cheeks, the eyes burning with their apparently inexhaustible intensity. Did the rebel leader mean it about killing all the prisoners? Diop asked himself. Did he have only a few hours of life left?

  There was no way of knowing. Indeed, Diop suspected that Jabang himself had no clear idea of how far he was prepared to go.

  Chapter 7

  It was four-thirty, and only thirty minutes remained until the expiry of the deadline. Nothing had been heard from the Senegalese forces or government – no radio broadcast, no telephone call, no visit from an intermediary, no white flag. And none of them was really expecting any, Taal thought. He had just returned once more from the front line, which was now located in the middle of the village of Lamin. The good news was that only one group of twenty fighters had been unable to escape from the Senegalese encirclement of the airport; the bad news was that several hundred more of the enemy had since been landed on the captured runway. If one thing was certain it was that the Senegalese were under no military pressure to negotiate.

  The other eleven members of the Revolutionary Council had received Taal’s report in the manner of condemned men hearing that their latest appeal had been denied. His suggestion that they relocate the government to Bakau, where the Field Force depot offered at least a defensible perimeter, had been voted on, and unanimously agreed, with a similar level of enthusiasm. Taal felt, but restrained himself from suggesting, that his fellow Council members would be better served getting out of this chamber and back amon
g their Party comrades.

  First, however, there was the business of the hostages to conclude. Or not to conclude. Taal fought back the temptation to say, ‘I told you so.’

  ‘We have here the classic dilemma,’ Jabang said, as if he was discussing an interesting academic problem. ‘If we do as we threatened, and kill them, then we will have no cards left in our hands at all …’

  ‘And will not be able to expect any mercy from the victors,’ Sallah interjected.

  This amused Jabang. ‘I am not expecting any now,’ he said. ‘As I was saying – if we kill them we have nothing left to bargain with. If we do not then we lose at least some of our credibility. Either way we lose. Of course, some’ – he looked at Taal with a smile – ‘might say we should never have made the threat in the first place, but we had to do something, or we would have lost the initiative entirely …’

  ‘Why not kill one hostage?’ one of the younger men asked. ‘That would show we were serious, yet still leave something to bargain with.’

  ‘That is true,’ Jabang admitted.

  But reluctantly, Taal thought, and that made him feel better. He did not like to think of his friend acceding to such a cold-blooded course of action. ‘If we kill any of the prisoners,’ he added in support, ‘we will sacrifice any hope of receiving help from abroad.’

  ‘Is there any such hope?’ the younger man wanted to know.

  ‘Our friends in Libya are trying to intercede with the Senegalese,’ Jabang said, ‘and through the Islamic Conference.’

  ‘There is also another point,’ Taal said. ‘I don’t want to sound too pessimistic,’ he went on, thinking that would be difficult, ‘but if this time we are defeated, we shall want the chance to fight again, and that means being accepted into exile in other countries. If we kill any of the prisoners – particularly Jawara’s family or Diop’s – no one in Africa or Europe will offer us safe haven.’

  ‘I agree,’ Jabang said, ‘but I think we must continue to give out the message that, in the last resort, we will have nothing to lose by killing them. Otherwise what is to stop the Senegalese from just rolling straight over us?’

  ‘We can claim that the deadlines have been extended for humanitarian reasons,’ Sallah suggested, which made Taal smile.

  ‘That is agreed, then,’ Jabang announced, looking round the table. ‘Sharif, make the announcement on the radio. Jallow, see that all the prisoners are moved into the Field Force depot tonight. And if we’re moving our men out of Banjul, we can put larger numbers outside the tourist hotels. The embassies in Bakau will get the message, and they’ll see it gets passed on to the Senegalese. Which should give them something to worry about. And at least slow them down. And by the way, Junaidi,’ he said, turning to Taal, ‘we have information that an Englishman shot one of our people on the Denton Bridge. It was decided he should be arrested – as a sign that we are serious.’

  It was on the stroke of five that the phone in Lieutenant-Colonel Weighell’s office rang.

  ‘Matheson,’ the now familiar voice said curtly. ‘Have you made any progress?’

  ‘We’re assembling a three-man team at the moment. They can be in London by eleven tomorrow morning. I assume you’ll want to brief them before they go.’

  ‘Someone will. We’ve just had news that hostages have been taken. We don’t know how many, or who they are, except that one of the President’s wives seems to be among them …’

  ‘One of his wives?’

  ‘He’s a Muslim,’ Matheson said drily. ‘At least I assume he is. It seems unlikely that he’d be a Mormon.’

  ‘I suppose not.’

  ‘Very well,’ Matheson said, his tone more businesslike. If you can get your team to the MOD by eleven a.m. I’ll have someone there to brief them on the situation.’

  ‘And the context, Minister,’ Weighell insisted. ‘The more they know about the country they’re going into the less chance there is of their making any major gaffes.’

  ‘Understood,’ Matheson said.

  ‘One other thing I wanted to check with you,’ Weighell said. ‘Are my lads wearing uniform on this outing?’

  ‘No. At least, assume not unless you hear to the contrary.’

  After putting down the phone Weighell sat at his desk for a minute or so, letting his mind wander through tropical sunshine and palm trees. Maybe he should have gone himself, he thought.

  He smiled to himself and called Caskey. ‘You’re on,’ he told him. ‘MOD, 1100 hours. Have you got hold of Wynwood yet?’

  ‘He was still in debriefing when I called. I’ll try again now, and give Franklin a call in London.’

  ‘The FO says no uniforms, Alan,’ Weighell told him, ‘but they may change their minds.’

  On the Yundum-Serekunda road there were some signs that the invaders were at least pausing for breath. Even so, crouched behind an overturned market stall, the Kalashnikov in his hands hot from firing, Moussa Diba was in no doubt that any such pause would only be temporary, and he was still looking for the perfect opportunity to wave his short military career goodbye. In the sky to the south-east he could see even more Senegalese planes coming in to land at the airport, carrying God knew what in the way of more men and weaponry. If this was not a lost war then he was Nelson Mandela.

  A single bullet whistled above his head and embedded itself in the concrete colonnade of the abandoned Field Force station behind him. Fifty yards or so down the street a couple of Senegalese were inching their way forward from cover to cover. Diba fired a burst in their direction, and had the satisfaction of seeing them dive into the shelter of a building.

  He wondered how they intended shifting the barricade which filled the street in front of him. Two taxis had been lined up nose to nose, several wooden carts and stalls from the marketplace piled up in front of them, and sundry other rubbish piled on top.

  Maybe they would bypass it, he thought – just circle through the fields and meet up again on the other side. Or maybe not. In the distance a rumbling sound was growing louder, causing Diba to think the worst – a tank.

  The source of the noise came into view. It turned out to be an armoured car, but that would be enough. It stopped about a hundred yards from the barricade, like a runner pausing to inspect a fence he intended to jump, then slowly gathered speed once more, crashing through the two taxi bonnets and coming to a triumphant halt on the rebels’ side of the broken wall. Its machine-gun suddenly opened up, spitting fire in Diba’s direction, sending splinters of wood flying from the upturned stall in front of him. One impaled itself in his cheek, causing blood to run.

  He swore and looked round for Jahumpa, expecting the signal to retreat, but the idiot was firing impotently at the armoured car. Diba raised his Kalashnikov and took a sighting on Jahumpa’s chest, but before he could pull the trigger his target picked up the walkie-talkie, said one word into it, and looked round, waving everyone back.

  Diba forgot about him, and keeping the stall between himself and the armoured car, crawled his way backwards into a gap between two houses. He then regained his feet and started running towards the open countryside.

  He had just decided that this was the ideal moment to abandon his unit when he rounded the last house and practically ran into the rest of them. Their lorry was bumping its way across the savannah to pick them up.

  Simon McGrath spent the afternoon on the roof of the Carlton, watching the increased traffic over the distant airport, and mentally following what he imagined would be the pace of the Senegalese advance. Most men would have gone mad with boredom after the first couple of hours, but a life in the military – and particularly his years in the SAS – had taught McGrath how to survive enforced inactivity with almost complete equanimity. At around five in the afternoon, with the sun sliding swiftly down towards the western horizon, it was hunger and thirst which drove him off the roof, not a restless mind.

  His timing turned out to be extremely fortunate. A minute later and he would have walked straight into t
rouble; a minute earlier and it would probably have walked straight in on him. As it was, he was still descending the two flights of stairs to his room when he heard the clump of several booted feet on their way up from the lobby below.

  He crouched down in the stairwell, just around the corner from the last flight down to his floor. The visitors seemed involved in a less than friendly conversation, and McGrath thought he recognized the hotel manager’s voice among them. The language sounded like Wollof.

  The bootsteps headed, as he had feared, for his room. There had to be at least four men, probably five. The bootsteps ceased, presumably outside his door, and further argument followed, this time in loud whispers. What the fuck are they doing? McGrath wondered.

  A loud splintering noise provided his answer. They were breaking down the door, rushing into his room, and finding it empty. And now the manager was shouting at whoever had given the order to destroy his door.

  McGrath smiled to himself, silently descended the flight of steps, and looked around. The third room along, in the opposite direction from his own, had its door open. He slid inside, careful to leave the door the same distance ajar, and waited, the Browning in his hand.

  The party emerged from his room, still arguing, this time in English. The manager was demanding to know where he should send the bill for his door, while his adversary was accusing him of harbouring a terrorist.

  That’s me, McGrath thought with a grin.

  The existence of the roof seemed to have escaped them, or perhaps the manager had convinced the visitors that McGrath must have gone out, because the whole party simply started back down the stairs. McGrath listened to their diminishing footfalls, and then headed down the corridor in search of a window overlooking the entrance. He found one just in time to see two men in Field Force uniform head back across the street towards the Legislative Assembly. Which presumably meant another pair were staked out in the lobby downstairs.